


History Boy

by storiesfortravellers



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Ancient Rome, F/M, History, M/M, Renaissance, silk road
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-02
Updated: 2013-12-02
Packaged: 2018-01-03 06:02:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1066905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesfortravellers/pseuds/storiesfortravellers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snippets of Methos' life at various points in history - ancient, medieval, Renaissance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	History Boy

**Author's Note:**

> For this prompt at comment-fic on lj: Highlander, Methos, (his)story

When people first started their permanent lingering – when, as historians would later put it, people first built cities – Methos declared it a passing fad.

A mere hundred years later, he found himself working as an accounts-keeper at a temple, part of a group directed by the high priestess to invent what would later be called writing. 

Methos stopped making declarations about the future after that; knowing history had many advantages, but prediction clearly was not one of them.

\--

Methos liked Greece. But he loved Rome.

He felt guilty for thinking it. Greece was the birthplace of so many human achievements. But Rome had embraced all of the Greek wonders – the art, the literature, the science, the philosophy – and added the Romans’ magnificent lust for pleasure. Their outward protests of morality and moderation aside, it was in Rome that Methos learned to truly enjoy food – roasted wings of rare birds, thick sauces over wild boar meat, honeyed cakes rich with dates and oil, and hundreds of other dishes more delicious than he had ever imagined possible.

They had orgies, too. 

And hot baths.

In later centuries, people would find it hard to believe that the food was the best part. The baths were second. 

\--

The Silk Road was a delight for Methos. He never cared much for trade, but he could manage it if he wanted to. And a spice dealer could find acquaintances – and information – anywhere he went. 

In all his years of travel, and in his earlier, brutal years of conquest, Methos had started to assume that he had seen the world. When he started travelling the Silk Road, he realized the truth: that he had experienced a mere and tiny portion of the world. 

It is a hard thing, to bring novelty back into the life of a 4000-year-old man. Methos was accordingly impressed. The Great Wall, the Himalayas, the buildings and cultures that were older than he was – to say nothing of the cultures and languages and literature and music and the food -- oh, the _food_ – it reminded him of Rome but without the orgies (most of the time).

He also found, during his travels, a wife.

He had been with many partners in his first thousand years. Mostly mortals. He didn’t even remember any of their names now. Sometimes, he dreamed a glimmer, a droplet of a memory: a young man’s face, welcoming him home, a woman on her deathbed, with Methos, still young, kneeling over her. He was stubborn, surely, to have tried so often to indulge in such fleeting happiness.

But when he met his wife in his travels, he knew that he would not be able to resist. She was a poet, living in Tibet, and her family objected to her marriage to a merchant, so she ran away with him. They built a house together in the mountains, and they lived there for eighty years, hunting and gardening and writing poems only for each other. He was grateful for her longevity, even when she struggled to eat, to walk, when she wasn’t strong enough to lift her head to kiss him and so he always leaned down to her. 

When she was gone, Methos went to live in a monastery for a couple hundred years. It was a calm place, and it helped Methos decide not to marry again.

\--

It is a little known fact that the Renaissance started because of a card game.

Methos, having been away from city life for so long, had been enjoying the pleasures that Florence had to offer. More than a bit drunk, he had wagered more than he could pay on an unwise bet.

He didn’t really care. He had more than enough gold hidden around Europe to pay any debts. 

But then the man who had won the most from Methos – a highly influential aristocrat -- had insisted on being paid right away; he didn’t trust men who showed up in town with no known contacts, who seemed uninterested in duels.

The only payment Methos had in his room were his treasured collection of books and scrolls – copied by monks and scholars through Europe and the Middle East, meticulous renderings of Greek and Roman writings. It crossed Methos’ mind to simply kill the man, but he was trying something new – living with humility -- and he reluctantly gave up his beloved books. The man, who was patron to many scholars and artists, was happy to receive them.

Centuries later, Methos would hear the term “Renaissance” and he would scowl. He never explained to anyone why.


End file.
